Russia admits military problems: "Not enough doctors" at the front
Created: 2022-11-27 04:51
By: Sandra Kathe, Caspar Felix Hoffmann, Andreas Apetz, Christian Stör
Russia suffers heavy losses in the Ukraine war.
Now the army has to improvise with their weapons: the news ticker.
Losses in figures:
Kiev announces Russia's losses.
Russian arsenal exhausted:
Army resorts to obsolete missiles.
Editor's note:
Read the latest developments in the Ukraine conflict in our news ticker.
The information on the Ukraine war processed here comes partly from the warring parties in Russia and Ukraine.
They can therefore not be independently checked in part.
+++ 9:32 p.m .:
The Russian foreign politician Leonid Slutsky has admitted problems with the Russian military.
At a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian State Duma in St. Petersburg, Slutsky addressed deficiencies in health care.
The daily
news reported about it
.
“There are not enough doctors in the military units;
everyone says so. I can't say they don't exist at all.
But you can hardly see them there," the foreign politician is quoted as saying.
In the past, the poor equipment of the Russian army was also criticized by its own soldiers.
Slutsky, an advocate of Russia's course in Ukraine, promised to discuss the problems with the Defense Ministry.
"We have to be aware that the whole world is watching us." If things like socks or doctors are missing, this leads to questions that are difficult to answer, Sluzki said.
Losses for Russia in the Ukraine war: Moscow under pressure – population increasingly dissatisfied
+++ 8.44 p.m .:
Prisoners of war were exchanged between Russia and Ukraine for the third time within a week.
As the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, announced on his Telegram channel, it was possible to free “twelve of our people”.
The Defense Ministry in Moscow has confirmed the exchange of 12 prisoners with Russian citizenship.
Ukrainian soldiers fire on Russian positions on the front line near Kherson.
(Archive photo) © Bernat Armangue/dpa
According to information from Kyiv, the Ukrainians are nine soldiers and three civilians who were reported missing.
The "Russians" are said to be residents of the "Donetsk People's Republic" in eastern Ukraine.
The American
Institute for the Study of the War
explains Moscow's willingness to exchange prisoners with the increasing dissatisfaction of its own population with the Russian mobilization.
Large parts of the population fear for their relatives.
Losses to Russia in Ukraine war: Ukraine scores heavy hits, destroys "important objects"
+++ 18:29:
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army reports new successes in the south of the country.
According to his evening report on
the armed forces are said to have succeeded in using artillery to score several heavy hits, including in the Russian-occupied Crimea.
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When shelling a checkpoint in the town of Dschankoy in the north of the peninsula, a total of nine "important objects" are said to have been hit.
According to the Ukrainian general staff, these are primarily weapons and military equipment of the Russian army.
The base hit is said to have only recently been set up by the Russian occupiers.
Losses for Russia in the Ukraine war: BBC collects information about killed Russians
+++ 2:25 p.m .:
According to the
BBC
, it has managed to confirm information about the death of 326 mobilized Russians.
Overall, the names of more than 9,300 Russian soldiers who died in the war in Ukraine are known from open sources.
Since the first day of the war, the
BBC
's Russian-language service , together with the media company
Mediazona
- which is considered a "foreign spy medium" in Russia - and a team of volunteers have kept a list of Russian losses in Ukraine.
As of November 25, information on 9,311 soldiers and officers killed can be confirmed.
Losses for Russia in the Ukraine war: arsenal of long-range missiles almost exhausted
+++ 11.00 a.m .:
According to British secret services, Russia is using outdated launchers in Ukraine that are actually designed for nuclear warheads.
According to a report by the British Ministry of Defence, debris from a missile that was allegedly shot down and which dates back to the 1980s and was developed as a nuclear delivery system can be seen on publicly available recordings.
The launchers would now be launched unarmed, without the warheads.
Although these missiles could still cause damage, Moscow is unlikely to achieve any serious success with them, the British government said.
Rather, the Kremlin hopes to distract the Ukrainian air defenses.
London took this as a sign of how exhausted Russia's arsenal of long-range missiles is.
Losses for Russia in the Ukraine war: Kyiv reports the current figures
Update from Saturday, November 26, 8:40 a.m.:
The Ukrainian General Staff has updated the data on Russia's losses.
According to this, 86,710 Russian soldiers have died in combat since the beginning of the Ukraine war.
The General Staff also provides additional data on aircraft, helicopters, tanks and other military equipment.
Russia's losses at a glance:
Soldiers:
86,710 (+560 on the previous day)
Aircraft:
278 (+0)
Helicopters:
261 (+0)
Tanks:
2901 (+2)
Armored fighting vehicles:
5848 (+4)
Artillery systems:
1896 (+1)
Air defense systems:
209 (+0)
Multiple Rocket Launcher:
395 (+0)
Cars and other vehicles:
4406 (+2)
Ships:
16 (+0)
Unmanned Combat Drones:
1554 (+1)
(Status: Saturday, November 26)
The information on Russia's losses in the Ukraine war comes from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. They cannot be independently verified. The Kremlin itself gives very little information about its own losses.
Losses for Russia: Whistleblower accuses superiors of behaving "like in a circus".
+++ 19:06:
Russian soldiers are increasingly turning to media critical of Russia to report on the conditions at the front.
It also comes up again and again how Russia should keep silent about the majority of its dead.
Mediazona
, a platform founded by activists associated with the Kremlin-critical group Pussy Riot, has now
published a report by a Russian soldier from the 155th Brigade.
He reports how around 450 to 500 soldiers from his unit have died in the vicinity of the small Ukrainian village of Pavlivka in the Donetsk region in the past few weeks.
About the same number were injured.
Some of the unit's soldiers then asked the superiors to change tactics, after which the command initially threatened legal action.
Then the soldiers were promised awards to calm them down.
"Our commanders are acting like they're in a circus," the anonymous soldier accuses his superiors and reports that although some of his comrades were withdrawn from Pavliwka, those who complained were asked to hold their positions.
The whistleblower accuses his superiors of seeing more value in possible awards than in the lives of their soldiers.
"Probably the only way to stay alive," writes the soldier, is to desert.
Russia's losses in the Ukraine war: several reservists fell after partial mobilization
Update from Friday, November 25, 2:45 p.m .:
The losses in the Ukraine war are causing Russia major problems (see initial report).
The partial mobilization in September should remedy the situation.
According to estimates by British secret services, however, a large number of the conscripted reservists have already fallen.
Among other things, in the Donetsk region around the city of Bakhmut, mobilized reservists were killed in large numbers, according to the short report by the British Ministry of Defense.
The same applies to soldiers who had to dig trench systems in the Luhansk region while under heavy artillery fire.
The Kremlin must be concerned that an increasing number of families of reservists are prepared to protest against the conditions in which their relatives are serving and, if necessary, to be arrested.
Losses for Russia in the Ukraine war very high
First report from Friday, November 25th:
Moscow/Kiev - Russia has had to accept heavy losses in the Ukraine war so far.
How high the losses of the Russian army are actually, is unclear.
The Kremlin itself is largely silent.
Most recently, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave official figures in September.
"Russia's losses amount to 5937," he said at the time.
However, a second wave of mobilization planned by Vladimir Putin suggests that the losses are considerably higher and can only be compensated for with new recruits.
The testimonies of a former officer of a Russian special forces and an active FSB officer of the Russian secret service, which the Russian investigative
portal Istories published in October
, also make it clear how many problems the Russian armed forces have to struggle with in the Ukraine war.
According to them, the number of casualties at that time was almost 90,000.
This included fallen soldiers, but also missing and wounded soldiers who are unable to return to military service.
As early as April, the Readovka news
portal
, which is close to the Kremlin , accidentally published figures on Russia's losses in the Ukraine war.
At that time there was talk of 13,414 fallen soldiers and around 7,000 missing.
For comparison: in the ten-year war in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, the then Soviet Union lost 14,523 dead.
Later information spoke of 26,000 fallen soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian general staff publishes the number of Russian casualties every day.
According to statistics from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, more than 86,000 soldiers have died in combat in the nine months of the Ukraine war.
(cs)
